Letters from Mesopotamia eBook

I want to be there very much, to look after them,
poor dears: but I must say that T.A’s view
that a place like Kut is desirable to be in per
se never fails to amaze me, familiar though it
now is. I had another instance of it last night.
About twelve of my draft were left behind on various
duties when the Coy. went up-river in such a hurry.
Hearing that my knee was so much better they sent me
a deputy to ask me to make every effort to take them
with me if I went up-river. I agreed, of course,
but what, as usual, struck me was that the motives
I can understand—­that one’s duty is
with the Coy. when there’s trouble around, or
even that it’s nicer to be with one’s pals
at Kut than lonely at Amarah—­didn’t
appear at all. The two things he kept harping
on were (1) it’s so dull to miss a “scrap”
and (2) there may be a special clasp given for Kut,
and we don’t want to miss it. They evidently
regard the Coy. at Kut as lucky dogs having a treat:
the “treat” when analysed (which they
don’t) consisting of 20lb. kits in December,
half-rations, more or less regular bombardment, no
proper billets, no shops, no letters, and very hard
work!

My leg is very decidedly better now. I can walk
half-a-mile without feeling any aches, and soon hope
to do a mile. There is an obstinate little puffy
patch which won’t disappear just beside the knee-cap:
but the M.O. says I may increase my walk each day
up to the point where it begins to ache.

We have had no rain here for nearly a month; but there
are light clouds about which make the most gorgeous
sunsets I ever saw.

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EXTRACT FROM LETTER TO HIS MOTHER.

December, 1915.

I am looking forward to this trek. Four months
is a large enough slice of one’s time to spend
in Amarah, and there will probably be more interest
and fewer battles on this trek than could be got on
any other front. The Censor has properly got
the breeze up here, so I probably shan’t be
able to tell you anything of our movements or to send
you any wires: but I will try and let you hear
something each week; and if we are away in the desert,
we generally arrange—­and I will try to—­for
some officer who is within reach of the post to write
you a line saying I am all right (which he hears by
wireless) but can’t write. That is what
we have been doing for the people at Kut. But
there are bound to be gaps, and they will tend to get
more frequent and longer as we get further.

No casualties from “A” Coy. for several
days: so I hope its main troubles are over.

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EXTRACT OF LETTER TO P.C.

Xmas Day, 1915.

... I’m so glad Gwalior was a success.
I think a good native state is the most satisfactory
kind of Government for India in many ways; but (a)
so few are really good, if you go behind the scenes
and think of such fussy things as security of life
and property, taxation and its proportion to benefits
received, justice and administration, education, freedom
of the subject, and so on. (b) It spells stagnation
and the abandonment of the hope of training the mass
of the people to responsibility; but I think that
is an academic rather than practical point at present.